Random parts of a the second chapter of my first novel in series.

By captain kate · Oct 1, 2012 · ·
  1. I still don't think I've got it polished to where I'm 100% satisfied with it, but it's getting there. First draft, and fleshing the scene out, is done so cutting words, etc will be next once I finish the complete revision/rewrite/editing of the entire novel. I'm satisfied with the scenes though. Hell, I've just decided to post most of the scene.

    CAUTION FOR STRONG LANGUAGE.

    “Ah, you’re awake.”

    “What…happened to me?”

    The nurse stood, close enough to touch, and looked at her computer. “It’ll be ok,” she said, “Everything will be explained in time.”

    She reached out, the move frighteningly fast, and grabbed the woman’s wrist. “What happened to me?”

    The nurse set the computer down, reached over, and tried to pry Kate’s fingers from her wrist. “If you let go, I can get someone to talk to you.”

    “No,” Kate squeezed her wrist, “I…”

    The nurse screamed, a high pitched wail of pain, as her wrist snapped, the crack sounding like a rifle shot in the quiet room. She let go of the other woman, staring at her arm and hand, fear starting rise again as she opened and closed her mouth. Kate sucked in a breath, what the hell just happened?

    She ripped the covers off, exposing pasty white legs, as medical staff rushed into the room. None of this was right; her body didn’t look like this. Who were these people, and what the hell had they done to her? What had they done??

    A doctor reached for her, and she shoved him away, nothing more then a simple push. The man flew across the room, a cry making her wince, and he hit the floor, sliding across the smooth surface to hit the far wall. She alternated between looking at her body, then the doctors, and a rush of emotion started to overcome the rational portion of her brain. Fear, combined with rage, built into a chorus, a crescendo with an unpredictable climax.

    Kate bent her head, sobs wracking her body, but tears wouldn’t flow.

    “What did you do? What the fuck did you do?” she shrugged off another nurse who tried to approach. “Why can’t I cry? Why! Why!”

    “Doctor Matthews to room one four, STAT!”

    Kate rolled over, trying to stand up, and fell off the bed instead. She landed, face first, the impact jarring, biting her tongue hard, and the lack of pain startled her even more. What the fuck? Where’s the blood? There should’ve been a ton after biting down so hard!

    The floor felt cold, freezing actually, against her skin and she tried to push herself up but couldn’t make it onto her hands and knees. What the fuck had the bastards done to her? Nothing worked and they’d better not keep claiming everything would be ok! How could that be when she couldn’t even stand up for God’s sake?

    A second doctor approached, reaching for her, and fear erupted inside her, the geyser of emotion no longer containable. She screamed, a heart wrenching combination of fear and sadness, which caused the medical team to back off. They’d seen many reactions during the testing phase, but nothing like this before, and it paralyzed them into inaction.

    Kate clawed at the floor, pulling herself across the floor, each handhold a struggle to achieve, and tried to reach the safety under the bed. She might not being able to stand, but getting under the bed would make things difficult as hell for the bastards to reach her. The bed had two legs, each one with roller wheels on the bottom, which left a tight space between the wall and closest leg. They might be able to move the bed, but she wouldn’t allow them to have an easy go at corralling her.

    Assholes.

    She wedged herself into the space, somehow managing to pull both legs tight to her chest, and looked back at the doctors with wide eyes. The first doctor, shaking himself out of the paralysis, came over and dropped to his knees, and reached for her. Kate grabbed his arm, and flung the man as hard as she could, which sent him flying across the room. He slammed into the far wall, slid to the ground, and lay there moaning.

    The tight confines felt safe, somewhere she could hide, and secure enough that Kate let her emotions flow uncontrollably. Sobs, from deep down in the place where a woman hides her deepest fears, racked her body, each one stronger then the last, but tears wouldn’t come. She sat, in an upright fetal position, and rocked herself back and forth. Screams soon replaced the sobs, grief and rage building up by the second, and she verbally lashed out at the people standing a short distance away.

    “What did you do to me? You bastards! You did this! What did you do!!”

    The words broke off, replaced by more sobs.

Comments

  1. captain kate
    LANGUAGE CAUTION!

    Matthews slid to a stop, frantically entering his override code, and he could see a nurse holding a wrist as she sobbed. Only Almir could’ve caused the damage, which meant she’d awakened, and all hell had broken loose. Christ, what kind of disaster awaited him?

    The door slid aside, and the sobbing nurse looked up at him, and he entered. Two doctors knelt down beside another one, smelling salts in their hands, and they worked to bring him back to consciousness. His team, yelling amongst themselves, stood in one corner, eyes focused on the bed across the room.

    Christ, what the hell happened?

    “Doctor,” Reyes demanded, “what the hell’s going on?”

    “I don’t know!”

    He crossed the room, looking at his team, and cleared his throat, which had the desired effect. The chorus of voices, which rose and fell depending on emotion, came to a stop, slowly at first before changing to silence.

    “What happened?”

    “She’s awake,” a nurse said, “and broke Teresa’s arm! Sent Proctor and Jamison across the room.”

    Matthews ran a hand through his hair, trying to calm his breathing, thoughts racing through his mind and he tried to focus them. Almir had woken up, that’d been established, which gave him a good base with which to start. She’d reacted aggressively, which matched the actions of the soldiers, but none of them had attacked, or accidentally hurt any of the medical team.

    “Ok,” he said, “tell me exactly what happened.”

    “She grabbed Teresa’s wrist,” the nurse said. “Asked ‘what did you do’ before squeezing, and breaking, Teresa’s wrist.”

    “Did she do it intentionally?”

    “No,”

    “Okay,” he said, looking at Reyes before turning his attention back to the nurse. “What happened next?”

    “Proctor tried to calm her, and she sent him flying.”

    “What did she say?”

    “She kept repeating ‘What did you do?’ over and over.”

    He sucked in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and closed his eyes. The actions were similar when the soldiers went crazy, but something different, and the answer tickled his brain, tantalizingly out of conscious reach. Every move they’d made had been blunt, precise and slowly turned emotional. Almir had started emotional, which changed the pattern, and left him wondering if things would continue the same road.

    “Where is she?” Reyes demanded.

    “Admiral!” Matthews snapped. “Let me piece together what’s happening, so we know what to do!”

    “Doctor,” the nurse said, pointing. “She’s under the bed.”

    “Under the bed?”

    “Yes,”

    He ran a hand through is hair again, breath threatening to increase again, and he looked over at the bed. A shape, arms and legs pulled up tight, looking small and pitiful, sat against the wall, and sobs racked the girl’s body. Ok, how the hell to handle this one? The patterns were similar but different enough to throw the baselines out, which he needed so he could precede.

    Think, Louis!

    Almir had climbed under the bed the hide, perhaps from the team, but he suspected more from what had happened. It’d become a symbolic move, which she could psychologically use and, perhaps, allow her a chance to adjust and accept the reality she faced. But then, he knew more about cybernetics and human bodies then psychiatry, so the analysis could be completely off base. Only way to find out, though, if his theories were correct or had they failed again.

    He motioned, several vehement times, for the Admiral to stand back, which the other man frowned at but Reyes stayed put. A gung ho military man, determined to press things through his way, wouldn’t help the situation, in fact it’d made things worse. The young woman’s emotional state walked the tenuous line between sanity and insanity, and it would take every skill he knew to keep her on this side.

    Here goes nothing.

    He got down on hands and knees, never letting the young girl out of his sight, and started to crawl towards her. She’d buried her face in hands, sobbing uncontrollably, and speaking to herself, begging anyone who could listen to bring back the tears. Pity ran through him, softening his body language, kind words teasing the tip of his tongue and he regretted not programming, or installing the capability to have tears into the body.

    If we can get through this, I’ll do it right away. She deserves at least that.

    “Kate? Can you hear me?”

    “Stay the fuck away!”
  2. captain kate
    LANGUAGE WARNING


    Her head whipped up, black hair flying everywhere, eyes burning like coals, and looked at a man on hands and knees five feet away. Who the hell they’d send this time? Could he be the bastard who changed her body, and replaced her blonde hair with black hair? Black hair! Who had that brilliant idea?

    Kate pulled a piece of hair, not believing what she’d seen, looked at it, and screamed again. They’d taken her blonde hair! Instead of having blonde hair with red streaks, now, for some fucking reason, it’d changed to black with blue streaks! Bastards.

    “Stay the fuck away!”

    The man continued to come closer, albeit slower, and she tried to move further away. If he were talking to her, then, it stood to reason, he’d done God knows what to her body. No way in hell she would let him get anywhere near, because the son of a bitch owed her an explanation!

    “Kate,” he said. “Talk to me.”

    She buried her face in hands, rocking back and forth, a feeling of despair washing over her like a tsunami. Her hands, and face, felt cold and inhuman, which brought on another eruption of sobs. Whoever did this; they’d turned her into a damned freak!

    “Kate,” the man said, trying to be soothing. “Talk to me.”

    “I don’t want to talk!” she snapped. “You did this to me, didn’t you!”

    “Let me explain…”

    “Fuck your explanations!” she snarled.

    So, she’d been right, and he’d been the bastard who did whatever the hell they did. She felt like crawling out from under the bed, strangling the life out of him, and killing herself. How could anyone want to live a life where they couldn’t cry, their hair had changed and they’d somehow gotten stronger?

    A sensation, new and not something she’d faced before started to wash over her mind. Kate felt something, cold and impersonal; start to invade her thoughts, bringing cool, logical processes to her raging emotions. The impersonal voice, overriding her thoughts this time, spoke and its volume overran the internal monologue, which she’d been listening to.

    Systems operational but neural activity exceeding normal parameters, adjusting neurotransmitters to compensate.

    The fear and rage backed off a bit, giving her the ability to think clearly, but still allowing the emotions to be felt. Kate looked up at the man, still pissed at him, locked eyes, and they stared each other down for nearly a minute before he looked away. He wanted to talk to her? Fine, the time for straight answers had arrived and he’d better deliver.

    “Kate,” he said, “Will you talk with me, please? I know you want an explanation, but it’s impossible to get if you won’t speak to me.”

    “Fine,” she said. “Talk.”

    “What’s the last thing you remember?”

    “Does this even matter?”

    “Yes, it does,”

    “The grenade exploded,” she ran a hand through her hair. “I remember feeling it tearing my body apart, and the agony it caused. My voice…it went hoarse from screaming.”

    A second man, she’d been too busy with the first to notice, stood halfway across the room, boots gleaming and his black uniform crisp and wrinkle free. Reyes. Somehow she guessed that bastard had a hand in whatever they’d done to her. Maybe this man would give her the straight dope, or she’d get it out of Reyes, even if she had to beat him down.

    “Kate,” the man looked at the floor. “It destroyed your body. The damage was too great, and, I’m sorry, you died.”

    “Then what is this, hell?”

    “No,” he sighed. “Admiral Reyes had you put into stasis, it kept your brain alive, minimal functions of course, but you were dead.”

    “I get that,” she said. “What happened next?”

    “I had two options,” he said, “pull the plug on the chamber, or bring you back.”

    “Bring me back?” She furrowed her brow. “What the hell does that mean?”

    “I had an experimental cybernetic body, Kate,” the man said. “We placed your brain in it, and brought you back to life.”

    “A what?”

    “A cybernetic body,”

    “What the fuck is that?”

    “It’s computerized,” he said, “a mechanical construct. Been wondering why you’re so much stronger then you used to be?”

    “Mmmm hmmm,”

    “It’s a by product of the transition,” he said, “You’re ten percent stronger and faster then a normal human, but I won’t bore you with details right now.”

    “Let me get this straight,” she rubbed her face with shaking hands. “I’m now a robot?”

    “If you wanted a proper term,” the man said, “Would be cyborg, but I hate that. I just call it cybernetic. Has a better sound, don’t you think?”

    “Who gives a fuck what I think,” she sighed. “I’m trapped in a body I don’t want, and God knows what I look like. Why? Because someone wanted to play God.”
  3. DanesDarkLand
    Okay Captain, here goes. I like what I am reading, and I keep reading in spite of the length. I rather enjoyed the story. There is one problem to consider. 10 percent increase in human strength in a cybernetic body is a little conservative. I'm not even talking about terminator style bodies, but modern robotics, hydraulics, electronics, or even the small motors that would be required to move body parts, would increase an Olympic power lifter's strength by about 50 percent. Depending on the body, and materials used, and I must assume that its not modern, but more futuristic, she will be at least that strong, but speed is something I'm not sure about. The human body has incredible reflexes that can be trained, and its doubtful they'll ever find a computer that can respond as quickly. But for sci-fi sake, maybe consider equal speed, with a boost available if planned, such as a planned increase in hydraulic pressure to make reaction times so much faster.

    Just thoughts, but consider the percentages as too conservative. Most sci-fi readers may as well. However, I must say, I enjoyed it. Glad I took the time to read it.
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